


There's Fantasy Tylenol on the Moon

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Whumptober 2019 [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Arguing, Gen, Human shield, Hurt No Comfort, Injury, Suicidal Thoughts, merle is a dad, more lighthearted than the tags are making it sound, whumptober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 00:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20939201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: “I’m fine,” Taako complained.  “Our dumbass meat-shield took most of the hit anyways, I’m-- don’t, hey-- stop-- would you-- fuck! Merle, ow!”





	There's Fantasy Tylenol on the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> whumptober 2019 continues! you fuckers thought I dropped out three days in?? never! 
> 
> prompt: human shield

There were things each of the Tres Horny Boys did that they themselves couldn’t explain if you asked them. Maybe they could explain it, actually, but they certainly couldn’t tell you the truth. They’d be talking out their asses as always, and they weren’t the biggest fans of introspection. 

Merle couldn’t explain for the life of him why he wanted to take care of people. He felt it like some kind of pull in the gut, like a _twinge_ that came and prodded at him every once in a while. It’s the reason he’d thought kids and a family was a good choice. Pan wanted him to take care of people? Fine. He’d make some people to take care of. 

But it was wrong. Everything about it was wrong, and here they were now. Real kids-- out there with Hekuba; overgrown dickhead kids-- half-dead, shouting at each other, laying on the floor. 

Maybe Merle had some regrets. 

Taako couldn’t explain for the life of him what he was still doing here. He was a one man show, always had been, always would be, and his brief stint trying the Taako Life with a _partner_ had ended about as horribly as any experiment could. Good riddance, he said. He didn’t give a single shit about that fiasco anymore (yes he did). 

So why was he still here, anyways? He didn’t care about these chucklefucks (yes he did), and he didn’t need OR want friends, thank you (yes. he did). He barely knew these guys anyways (wrong), so why, with all of this hullabaloo, was he still around when it would have been so much easier to duck out? 

Why was he wasting precious energy in a half-dead state arguing with one of them about how _dumb_ it was for him to risk his life like that, how he shouldn’t _care_ enough to risk anything for Taako? Taako should have been grateful but quiet about it, shouldn’t have had a thing to say besides scorning the guy for getting mud and blood on the both of them. High elves had no business showing compassion or gratitude-- that was something he’d learned very, very young (something he couldn’t remember learning, an outdated ideal from an unforgiving culture on a planet in a plane of existence long, long dead). 

And yet, here he was. 

Taako didn’t get why anyone would want to save him anyways. 

There were a number of things Magnus couldn’t explain for the life of him, or maybe he could, if he really tried. The explanations never felt quite right. Magnus Burnsides didn’t exactly have a death wish, though if _anyone_ was going to be suicidal, he figured he’d earned the right at that point. His childhood hadn’t taught him much for valuing his own safety and wellfare, _thank you very much,_ horrible disgraces of parents. And once he’d managed to survive and escape all of that, once he’d found love and life and a family, she’d been taken away from him right under his own nose. Everything he loved and worked for-- shattered. Everything he’d ever dreamed of-- gone. Life lesson: you cannot have, nor do you deserve, nice things. Life lesson: nobody can survive loving you. Life lesson: family is bogus, and so is being alive. 

But Magnus wasn’t suicidal, or at least, he didn’t think he was. He just couldn’t care less if he was alive. It wasn’t that he wanted to die, perse, it was just that deep down, somewhere in his gut, like a twinge, he knew that it didn’t fucking matter. 

Something was telling him that if he died, he’d come right back. The end wasn’t the end, there was no escaping. He was going to be miserable forever and ever, death or not, so he might as well go on cool adventures and make himself fucking useful while he was stuck here. 

Besides, even if his gut was wrong-- which it had to be, right? (...wrong...?)-- he was just a human. He had about a century of life on this planet before he beefed it for good, disappeared into dust and all that, whereas Merle and Taako? They had _centuries_. Taako especially lived practically _forever_. 

If anyone was going to die, it might as well be him. Besides, he was pretty sure that he couldn’t die anyways. 

“That, my man, is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard! Of course you can die!” 

“Yeah, but I’m just saying it’s not like it _matters_!” 

“Oh, look at you, mister martyrdom, you trying to get fantasy sainthood or something? Trying to make the rest of us look bad?” 

“Y’know most people say _thank you_ when someone saves their life, right?” 

“Yeah well most people are fucking stupid. I didn’t ask you to, and I don’t need you to, thanks but no thanks, amigo.” 

“Well sor-_ry_ for giving two shits about you. I’ll think better of it next time!” 

“Yeah! You do that! Keep your fucking compassion-- and-- and rustic hospitality or whatever the fuck to yourself!” 

“That doesn’t even make sense!” 

“You don’t even make sense!”

“I cast calm emotions!”

And it was like running head first into a wall of water. Magnus stuttered to a stop mid-sentence, still laying prone on the floor, no longer glowering up at the ceiling. Taako, on the other hand, slumped over sideways like a marionette with the strings cut, and stared blankly straight ahead. 

“You’re wasting spell slots,” he chided, no heat in his voice at all. He frowned. 

“Could have head better healing if you dumbasses weren’t driving me _crazy_. What am I gonna do? Heal you so you can get back up and kill each other?” He did heal both of them, not much at all, but some. “There’s fantasy Tylenol on the moon.” 

He went to assess the bruising covering Magnus’s ribs from where he’d taken that huge hit. Might be broken. He didn’t assess them as gently as he could have. 

“Ow, ow, _ow! _ Watch it!” Magnus complained, trying to roll away from him and finding that it hurt worse than the prodding. He slumped back down on the forest floor. 

Not broken. Maybe. Hard to say, he’d have to have the healers on the base take a look at it. 

He knee walked the few feet over to Taako, who hissed at him cat-like before trying with a bit more success than Magnus, to log-roll away. Merle grabbed him and hauled him back over. Taako was out of spell slots anyways, what was he going to do about it.

Whine, apparently. “I’m _fine_,” Taako complained. “Our dumbass meat-shield took most of the hit anyways, I’m-- don’t, hey-- stop-- would you-- _fuck! _Merle, _ow!” _

_“_Brat,” Merle complained. “You forget the hits you took before all of that bullshit?” 

Taako scowled at him. “Idiot wizard, remember?” 

“How could I fuckin’ forget.” 

The presence of an orb sailing through the sky above them caught Merle’s attention and left him wondering how the hell he was going to load the two of them into the pod by himself. Taako-- easy. Grab and drag, he was just a twig of a thing. Magnus was an entire slab of meat, pure Faerun beef that boy was, and dwarves were strong but they were only so strong. 

They managed it though, got into the pod and up to the moon, and even with the arguing and the bitterness there were still actions performed that they couldn’t explain or account for. Merle couldn’t explain for the life of him why he practically dragged those two idiots to the infirmary, argued with the healers about the situation, and had the impulse to lecture Magnus further about the consequences of being an _idiot_. Taako couldn’t explain for the life of him why he didn’t just take the bandaid and go _home_, he was _fine._ Why he waited in the med bay and stuck as close to Magnus as he could manage was totally lost on him. Magnus couldn’t explain for the life of him why he was still alive, or furthermore, why he thought he shouldn’t be. Why he was so convinced he should just close his eyes and wake up fine again, as if that was a thing that had ever happened _ever_ (it had). 

But they were fine, mysteries and injuries besides. And maybe they’d never get an explanation for these strange feelings in all of them (they would). Maybe there wasn’t any explaining it anyways (there was). 


End file.
